.\"property list tools man page
.\"written by Adrian Robert (arobert@cogsci.ucsd.edu)
.\"Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
.\"Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
.\"are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
.\"notice and this notice are preserved.
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.\"Process this file with
.\"groff -man -Tascii gdnc.1
.\"
.TH PLDES 1 "August 2003" GNUstep "GNUstep System Manual"
.SH NAME
pl, pldes, plser, plmerge, plparse, pl2link	\- property list tools
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.BI "pldes " "filename(s)"
.nf
.BI "plget " "key" [ more keys ]
.nf
.BI "plser " "filename(s)"
.nf
.BI "plmerge [ " "destination-file" " ] [ " "input-file(s)" " ]"
.nf
.BI "plparse " "filename(s)"
.nf
.BI "pl2link " "input-file" " [ " "destination-file" " ]"
.nf
.BI "pl -input [ " "input-file" " ] " " -output [ " "destination-file" " ]"
.nf

.SH DESCRIPTION
.P
Property lists in GNUstep are hierarchical lists of values or attribute-value
pairs.  Programmatically they are represented by instances of the NSString,
NSData, NSArray, or NSDictionary (most common) class (which may contain other
instances of such classes).  These instances can be serialized as binary
objects to form a persistent representation.  In addition, there are two
alternative human-readable representations.  The first, utilized in NeXTstep
and OpenStep, utilizes a text format with equals signs expressing
attribute-value bindings and set braces expressing hierarchical organization.
The second, often (uninformatively) referred to as "plist" format, is in XML
and is used by Mac OS X.  The tools described here are utilities for
manipulating the various persistent property list representations as files.
.IP "\fBpldes\fR \fIfilename(s)\fR" 4
Converts a binary serialised property list (class instance) to a text
representation.
.IP "\fBplget\fR \fIkey\fR" 4
Reads a text representation of a dictionary in property list format as
standard input, extracts the string value held in that dictionary with
the specified key, and writes the result to standard output.
Multiple keys may be used to extract values from nested dictionaries.
.IP "\fBplser\fR \fIfilename(s)\fR" 4
Converts a text representation of a property list to a binary serialized
representation.
.IP "\fBplmerge\fR [ \fIdestination-file\fR ] [ \fIinput-file(s)\fR ]" 4
Merges text property lists into a single property list
.IP "\fBplparse\fR \fIfilename(s)\fR" 4
Checks that each file contains a valid text representation of a property list.
.IP "\fBpl2link\fR \fIinput-file\fR [ \fIdestination-file\fR ]" 4
Produces a desktop link file for KDE and Gnome for the given text
representation of a property list.
.IP "\fBpl\fR \fI-input\fR [ \fIinput-file\fR ]" 4
Takes the serialized plist represented by input-file and outputs it to standard output.
.IP "\fBpl\fR \fI-output\fR [ \fIdestination-file\fR ]" 4
Takes a plist from standard input and serializes it into destination-file.
.PP

.SH SEE ALSO
defaults(1)

.SH HISTORY
Written 1999-2000.
.PP
This manual page first appeared in gnustep-base 1.9.2 (March 2004).
.P
.SH AUTHORS
.B pldes, plget, plparse, plser
were written by Richard Frith-Macdonald <rfm@gnu.org>.
.PP
.B plmerge
was written by Jonathan Gapen  <jagapen@whitewater.chem.wisc.edu>.
.PP
.B pl2link
was written by Fred Kiefer <FredKiefer@gmx.de>.
.PP
.B pl
was written by Gregory Casamento <greg_casamento@yahoo.com>.
